If you are heading to Dunedin next year to study Commerce or Business, you will find yourself among the first group of students enjoying the newly redeveloped University of Otago Business School.

Over the last 14 months, the Business School building has undergone a $15 million upgrade over two floors. The leaky, cold atrium has become a warm, weather-proof space which includes a new café. The redeveloped building will be the home for Commerce staff as well will house the division’s teaching and social spaces.

Study spaces, including study rooms equipped with screens and projectors for group work, are a feature. Another feature is the distinctive 10-metre sculpture by Ngāi Tahu artist Ross Hemera, suspended from the ceiling above the shared space.

Commerce students make up around one sixth of the University of Otago’s student population with almost 3,000 equivalent full time students enrolled.